Stories about my old hometown, Detroit, are no longer merely depressing. The word, depressing, just doesn’t get it. Detroit is beginning to be fascinating. Its plight is almost mesmerizing, in a science-fiction post-apocalyptic kind of way. Terrible awful unbelievable story in The New York Times today saying, among other things,…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Welcome to The Weekly, where we’ll tell you what’s happening at various weekly musical events going on in DFW this summer. Some of them will be well-known scenes, some will be considerably less so. Every Tuesday night between 8 and 10 p.m., White Rock Coffee on E. Northwest Highway opens…
Lindsey BestAndrew Youssef [Editor’s Note: Longtime concert photographer Andrew Youssef found out almost two years ago that he had Stage IV Colon Cancer. In that time, he has continued to shoot tons of music events for our sister paper OC Weekly on top of other freelance work and working a…
I guess we just need some big Texas schoolhouse shootouts before we’ll know whether it’s crazy to put guns on the hips of teachers. A story in The New York Times today reports that insurance companies are refusing to offer coverage to school districts in some states where teachers pack…
I’m like you. Since Mike Miles started as Dallas schools chief a year ago, seven people have resigned from his leadership team. I wonder what’s wrong. Why are these people leaving? Is it Miles? The school board? Me? My dogs? It’s not easy to get a good answer, because the…
My recent columna about whether Aztec savagery influences violence in Mexico today drew muchos responses. Here are two: Dear Mexican: I grew up in Huntington Beach and am a “brown man” (Iranian descent). I’m currently in Shitzona finishing up pharmacy school and made an observation today. The reason Mexicans are…
Summer’s here and the time is right for hitting up White Rock lake but not — and we mean this — to swim in it. Oh, no no no. Instead, take this handy dandy bingo card with you and play along as you walk the trails around the lake. Watch…
Folks, meet my former co-worker Shaun Colon. Shaun and I worked together briefly in 2009 at The Absolute Space, a recording and video studio, as well as 100-room rehearsal facility in Dallas. Absolute is gone now, but the memories remain of aligning with some profound musical talent and pretty cool…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Two big ifs. If you don’t happen to be employed by the Dallas school district. If you are not a member of the African-American old-guard elected leadership in southern Dallas with strong personal ties to certain school district employees. If neither of those categories applies to you, then you may…
Lindsey BestAndrew Youssef [Editor’s Note: Longtime concert photographer Andrew Youssef found out almost two years ago that he had Stage IV Colon Cancer. In that time, he has continued to shoot tons of music events for our sister paper OC Weekly on top of other freelance work and working a…
Heed what just happened in the battle over next year’s school budget for Dallas. Black elected leaders on the school board voted for segregation and failure. It’s time for everybody — I mean everybody — to rethink the role of black elected leadership in this city. Of course the traditionally…
Next month will mark one year since Mary Larke Pewitt Godfrey lost her son, Deep Ellum fixture Sean Ashford, and gained a following she never expected, via Sean’s friends. Overwhelmed first by loss and later by support and adulation, Godfrey and her new following of Deep Ellumites who knew and…
Lots of news the last two weeks about people fleeing the “cabinet” of Dallas school Superintendent Mike Miles, a reference to his executive team. It so happens I have been pursuing a story in that area, which I will convey in full in a column in the paper next week…
Welcome to The Weekly, where we’ll tell you what’s happening at various weekly musical events going on in DFW this summer. Some of them will be well-known scenes, some will be considerably less so. Thursday nights at the Dallas Museum of Art is the place to be. The DMA atrium…
Collecting records can so frequently be about the chase or the dig. But it’s 100 degrees out there and frankly it’s about to be too hot to do anything besides drink Topo Chico over crushed ice and slurp paletas all day. So the digging, the digging will have to wait…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
A deeply moving scene last night at the board of directors meeting of Dallas Area Rapid Transit, our regional transit agency: Public seating in the large chamber was filled wall-to-wall with ex-offenders pleading for the very thing we should all want for them — honest work. I told you about…
Let me see if I get this. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is already paying Texas 75 percent of its costs for cleanup in West and making $8 million in low interest loans to individuals. But because FEMA ruled recently that Texas is capable of picking up the balance…
You guys are killing me. I’m a four-hyphen guy, a commie-pinko hippie-liberal nanny-state bleeding-heart libtard. I thought Dallas was supposed to be ultra-conservative. You’re supposed to have at least one hyphen. But you keep putting me on the wrong side of the hyphen. Today The Dallas Morning News has a…
Plans for the 50th anniversary of the murder of President John F. Kennedy at Dealey Plaza in Dallas just got weirder by one whole magnitude. Yesterday Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings unveiled a process that will make security much tighter for the ceremony next November than security would be for a…
